


Corpus Delicti

by sinistrocular



Category: VIXX
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-06 22:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3150818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinistrocular/pseuds/sinistrocular
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the far off (and horrible) future, Jung Taekwoon and Kim Wonsik are partners in the special forces division of the United Crimes Task Force. When one mission turns into a wild goose chase, Taekwoon and Wonsik find themselves unable to identify friend from foe. aka the dystopian sci-fi police force!au</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ONE

**Author's Note:**

> Finally brought this over from tumblr/AFF. I'm currently working on revisions at about a one chapter/~3000 words/week pace.

"I’m taking the shot." Wonsik adjusted the scope and leveled the crosshair at the black helmet standing over his partner.

The mission had gone from bad to worse in a matter of seconds when bad intel led his partner right into room of armed guards. Though the other could best any one soldier in close combat, sheer numbers easily changed the table. Relying entirely on the whims of a trigger-happy few made Wonsik’s fingers itch and he wouldn’t bet his partner’s life on a guard’s patience.

"Copy," he heard the other barely breathe out.

Wonsik squeezed the trigger and a sigh of relief echoed in his ear. They were not going to be trusting that rat bastard informant again any time soon. At least, not if Wonsik held any sway in the decision. Most of the time he didn’t, but his partner was not likely to forget this incident either. Something about personal pride regarding mission stats.

"Usual place?" Wonsik asked as he disassembled his rifle and packed it away, hoping rejection didn’t linger on the horizon.

"Maybe," that oh so musical voice replied with a teasing lilt.

He smirked as he slung the rifle in its case over his shoulder, heart pounding in his ears for an entirely different reason than before.

—-

Heavy bass rattled Wonsik’s bones as soon as he stepped over the threshold into the speakeasy, grateful for the intense beat that muffled his heart’s nervous pattering. The haze of smoke and whatever else people smoked nowadays settled the shake in his hands as he made his way to the bartop. Two taps of his fingers ordered the barkeep away and now Wonsik waited. This part was familiar and Wonsik learned to have patience long ago, that he would wait for however long he had to. Still, he never knew a man so filled with contrasts; diligence and punctuality on the field, but off seemed nigh on impossible for his partner. Even though Wonsik knew him best, he too was left guessing more often than not and he supposed that was part of his partner’s charm.

Wonsik fished a cigarette from the pack in his jacket pocket and the lighter with it. One advantage to his partner’s perpetual lack of awareness meant he could finish at least one queen before the other arrived. He pressed the filter to his lips and flicked the lighter open. One click, then two, and a flame flickered to life.

And then a hand closed over the lid, snapping it closed.

"Idiot," A quiet voice said from over his shoulder.

With a chuckle, Wonsik replied, “I know I am. Why else would I be here, Takewoon?”

He turned in his chair to face the owner of the hand tugging his lighter away and found himself greeted by a treat. For once, it seemed his partner had at least attempted to dress up for the occasion, decked out in dark blazer edged sharply with white fabric that made Wonsik’s patience wither. He knew well enough not to touch, but damn if Taekwoon tempted him too often for his comfort. For now, he settled for the gentle caress that brushed across his knuckles. If Taekwoon ever took up the rifle, Wonsik would mourn the loss of his partner’s soft fingertips.

"You look nice." Wonsik released the little metal lighter without further argument and Taekwoon tucked it into one of the pockets in his sinfully tight jeans.

"It’s a special day." Taekwoon graced the stool next to him and Wonsik tried his best to hide the smile tugging at his lips. So his partner _did_ remember, after all.

"I’m lucky." Wonsik glanced over before surrendering the rest of his pack of cigarettes.

More than once, he’d suffered a lecture from Taekwoon about his health and the dangers of a respiratory infection in a sniper. One unsteady breath could change the momentum in a fight, waste good ammunition. Even those reminders of how easily he could mess up and lose his partner as collatoral couldn’t bring down the habit.

"That makes one of us." Taekwoon’s lips quirked minutely though he didn’t turn and let the cardboard pack sit on the smooth glass between them.

"You use all of yours up on missions." By now, Wonsik had grown used to the playful insults and Taekwoon’s allergy to compliments. "I swear my hair’s going to be gray in a couple months."

"I like gray better than orange," his partner answered in a similar manner as before.

Wonsik ran his fingers through his offending mowhawk. Years had gone into his hair and he wouldn’t lose any sleep over Taekwoon’s barbs. After all, if Taekwoon truly hated it, Wonsik would simply wake up one morning without hair.

Two highball glasses clinked against the glass in front of Wonsik and he held out the chips to the barkeep. “Keep the change.”

"You’re in a generous mood." Taekwoon accepted the drink as Wonsik slid it over to him.

"It’s a special day." Wonsik swallowed as delicate fingers covered in bruises briefly kissed his callused ones.

Taekwoon’s lips quirked again before he finally looked Wonsik’s way. Warmth snaked through Wonsik’s chest at the sight and he took every last moment to memorize how fine cheekbones met his partner’s sharp jawline in an angle Wonsik could only describe as ‘heavenly.’ Dark eyes stared out of a facade of pale skin and rigid stoicism that rarely softened for anyone except him; Wonsik thanked his lucky stars every time.

"To one year." Taekwoon raised his glass a few inches from the bartop and Wonsik met it with his own.

"And one more," Wonsik greedily toasted in return as their drinks clinked against each other.

"Idiot." Taekwoon hid his widening smile with the bright blue liquid, but Wonsik knew better than to believe the insult.

"But at least I’m your idiot,” Wonsik crooned, pushing his luck as he leaned in a few inches closer to his partner.

With a roll of his eyes, Taekwoon slid back off the stool and knocked his knuckles against the side of Wonsik’s head. Grinning, Wonsik followed, drink in hand, through the crowd of sweaty bodies washed with blinking lights of various colors. He loved the overwhelming assault on his senses, how silhouettes blurred together into a thrashing mass of bodies around him. Soon he and Taekwoon disappeared together into a the dark current of churning limbs.

—-

A chill kissed Wonsik’s neck as he stretched out against the tangled sheets of his bed, his fingers searching for the warm body he began the night with. Instead, they trailed across a folded scrap of paper and Wonsik opened his eyes with a groan. So much for a special night equating to an equally special morning, but Taekwoon knew the rules against fraternization better than he did. Wonsik suspected his partner kept the manual in his back pocket at all times, if just to cockblock him at every available opportunity. Still, at least Wonsik got some last night, no matter what hour Taekwoon left that morning, and he wouldn’t be forgetting his partner’s keening anytime soon. Poor guy must have been seriously pent up to make so much noise.

"One more year," Wonsik read aloud from the impeccable handwriting and couldn’t help but smile, despite his disappointment.

With a stretch, he slowly sat up, blinking away the sleep from his eyes. The sound of water rushing from a faucet made him perk up further and when the door to the bathroom a few paces away opened to reveal a uniformed Taekwoon, Wonsik grinned even wider. While a dressed up Taekwoon pleased every inch of his psyche, neatly brushed undercuts and freshly shaven faces in a uniform made Wonsik grateful for loose sweatpants.

"I thought you left already." He climbed up out of bed without another moment of hesitation and scurried over to his partner.

Taekwoon raised an eyebrow shook his head and Wonsik couldn’t resist the opportunity to inspect his partner’s uniform. Of course, not a single thread was out of place, but Wonsik made due with straightening Taekwoon’s lapels nonetheless.

"If you wrinkle anything, you’re getting hit," Taekwoon said.

"Wouldn’t dream of it," Wonsik smirked as he reaffirmed his grip on his partner’s uniform and tugged the both of them back toward the bed.

When the back of Wonsik’s knees collided with the mattress, Taekwoon pressed the advantage and easily unbalanced the sniper. Wonsik honestly didn’t mind, though, since it meant more time with Taekwoon, and met his partner’s lips when they pressed against his. As Wonsik reached up to tangle his hands in Taekwoon’s hair, however, the other man pulled back and out of reach, leaving Wonsik panting against the messy sheets. That’s when it hit Wonsik that not only was Taekwoon up early, but fully dressed.

"We’ve got another mission already?" Wonsik groaned.

"Supposed to report ASAP," Taekwoon replied, straightening the cuffs of his sleeves.

Wonsik noticed the pink blooming in his partner’s cheeks and grinned. It wasn’t like Taekwoon to dawdle for a few extra kisses when the word ASAP was invovled. Maybe Taekwoon wanted to stay for a special morning after all.

"We work too hard." Wonsik sighed as he got back to his feet.

Taekwoon silenced any further complaints with another kiss. Their lips clashed for too short a time before Taekwoon pulled away once more.

"Bring coffee," his partner said as he turned toward the front door. "I’ll cover for you until you get there."

Whoever said love didn’t pay the bills had never been in love with Jung Taekwoon.

—-

Wonsik slid into the briefing room twenty minutes and two cups of coffee later and set the styrofoam cup in front of his partner, who didn’t so much as glance up at his arrival. That was normal, unfortunately, and left Wonsik cursing the rulebook not only today but many yesterdays before. Rather than make a huff, however, he slumped into his seat beside Taekwoon and settled for ‘accidentally’ nudging his partner’s shoulder.

"Sorry," Wonsik mumbled without a hint of remorse.

Taekwoon glanced toward Wonsik but, before either could say anything, the lights dimmed and the latter scrambled for his datapad in the dark.

"Nice of you to join us, Agent Ravi," Commander Kim greeted him with a sneer and Taekwoon’s fingers tightened around the styrofoam cup.

With a placating smile, Wonsik nodded, though he kicked Taekwoon’s shin under the table. His partner released the cup and spread his palm flat against his datapad instead, which Wonsik counted as a success. The last thing either of them needed was an investigation from internal affairs, especially considering how many fraternization rules they had already broken. No matter how thoroughly covered their tracks, chances couldn’t be taken.

"We got word an hour ago about an incident at TS Pharma," the commander gestured toward the viewscreen behind him, which displayed a blueprint littered with green and red dots. "Sent in a squad as soon as we could, but as you know, TS specializes in biological weapons."

The Parasite. Wonsik had only seen it in training films and that was back before TS got a major boost in funding. Who knew what waited behind locked doors nowawadays.

"You’re to get to their BSL-4 labs and guarantee that the Parasite is still contained." Commander Kim flicked his wrist and the blueprint turned on its side to show a door marked with blue. "Door 98 is the most direct entrance. Ravi, Leo, you’re both on point today and you won’t have any support until we break through the clusterfuck at the front door."

"We can help with that," Wonsik suggested, flicking through his datapad for updates on the hostiles.

Wonsik would need a perch on a neighboring building, but the hostiles would go down easy.

"Your priority is to contain the Parasite," Commander Kim corrected, his voice hardening. "Is that clear, Agent?"

Taekwoon’s knuckles whitened where he gripped his datapad and Wonsik quietly wished again that Commander Kim Jiwon would be less of an ass for one day in his life. The kid was younger than them, but had moved up through the ranks quickly and made sure no one forgot it. Most people didn’t put up a fight, but one incident of calling the commander out was apparently enough to land Wonsik a permanent home on his bad side.

And of course that put the commander on Taekwoon’s bad side. The two could play civil when required, but Wonsik swore the commander went out of his way to avoid Taekwoon off-mission. For all his soft features and musical voice, his partner’s shadow loomed enough to spook most of the UCTF. Still, as long as world war three didn’t erupt, Wonsik could play along.

"Yes, sir," Wonsik replied curtly and the lights in the room rose.

Shouldering his pack, Wonsik waited for Taekwoon to finish chugging his coffee before they both descended into the locker room beneath UCTF headquarters. Despite an increased budget for questionable reasons, the place remained a dump. Where the funds were funneled Wonsik didn’t know, but he didn’t expect anything good to come of it. Just another facet of the UCTF he liked to ignore and pretend never existed.

"I’ll make dinner tonight if you make another appearance at my apartment," Wonsik stated as he tugged his kevlar vest from his locker.

Years ago, their lockers were across the room from each other, but leverage and a few six packs had bought Wonsik the locker next to Taekwoon’s. This meant that when his partner didn’t answer right away, Wonsik could elbow him in the ribs.

"We’re responding to a call," Taekwoon provided, though with a measure of distaste readily apparent in his voice.

"Yeah, so is that a yes or a no?" Wonsik grinned despite his partner’s irritation; getting a reaction was well worth it.

"It’s a maybe." Taekwoon holstered his sidearm into his shoulder fit and his backup to the one at his ankle as Wonsik clipped his rifle to the bandolier slung about his chest.

"Last night was a maybe, too." Wonsik shrugged as he exchanged his usual coat for something better fit for melee combat that ended neatly at his waist.

Taekwoon’s ears practically glowed red, though he quickly hid them underneath a black helmet. Poor guy fought too hard to appear disintrested for too long that Wonsik could hardly help himself anymore.

"Looks like it’s a maybe, then." Wonsik followed suit and tugged his visor down over his braided hair. "I’ll drive."


	2. TWO

"They’re having a fun time up front."

Taekwoon ground his teeth as he refocused on the task at hand: the lock on Door 98, not whatever mess Wonsik wanted to narrate to him. His fingers slipped and the card reader glowed red under his gloves. That would go on his record and though he usually forgave Wonsik for his antics, he hated when they interfered with his concentration like this. Once upon a time, Taekwoon had been able to ignore the other man’s unruffled approach to missions, but since they started sleeping with each other, every word slipped beneath his defenses.

"I could take some of them out from here," Wonsik continued and Taekwoon sucked in a deep breath before approaching the lock again.

"You’d alert hostiles to our location." Taekwoon followed a wire with his gloved fingertip to the back of the card reader. Ah. He’d picked the wrong one.

"Eh, you’re right, but that wouldn’t be too bad," Wonsik replied, not moving from his scope. "I’ve got a hot date I want to get back for."

Taekwoon didn’t need to see his partner’s face to know the smirk on it. Answering in kind would only encourage behavior like this in the future. Wonsik seemed to be in a hurry, but Taekwoon refused to let that under his skin as well. Dinner would remain hours off, not matter if they dispatched the hostiles or stuck to their task. Not getting killed took priority to the dinner and any musings as to the menu.

When his breath steadied once more, Taekwoon slid his knife to the correct wire this time and delicately slid his knife along the rubber insulation to sever the copper underneath. With a sigh of relief from Taekwoon, the card reader blinked green and he replaced his knife in its sheath at his collar.

"We’re in," Taekwoon dropped his voice as he unholstered his pistol.

"Hostiles are still engaged with UCTF forces," Wonsik replied, shouldering the rifle in favor of a much quieter custom semi-automatic that fit well in his palm.

With a nod, Taekwoon gingerly pushed open the door and the two disappeared inside in silence. They entered the brightly-lit hallway, Taekwoon with his pistol leveled at the door nearest to them. No sign of life greeted them and he heard a quiet sigh from his six. For someone who made a career of killing, Wonsik sounded awfully relieved to not ventilate anyone. Yet another trait of Wonsik’s that Taekwoon didn’t fully understand. Still, he wouldn’t argue with a path of minimal resistance. Their target already stood behind multiple security doors and if they could cut out conflict, Wonsik could be back to that so-called ‘hot date’ in plenty of time to cook up a feast. One year of fraternizing had softened him, but he couldn’t help but like the changes Wonsik brought.

The two pressed forward and Taekwoon gestured toward the stairway at the end of the hall. With a nod, Wonsik followed his lead. The silence that reverberated around them made Taekwoon far too uneasy and door after door greeted them with an unnerving absence of life. When they arrived at the empty lab, his paranoia seemed all too justified. With a sigh, Taekwoon turned away from Wonsik and pressed his hand to the receiver at his ear.

"The lab isn’t here, Commander," he said, not excited to hear the response.

"What do you mean it isn’t there?" their CO’s anger filled his ear and Taekwoon tried not to bristle.

"Permit requirements changed five years ago," Wonsik interjected, once again saving him from having to spend more than a few minutes talking directly to the Commander. "TS might have moved them to a different building on campus."

"Anything there to indicate that?" Commander Kim asked, his voice sharpening to a razor’s edge.

"We’re not supposed to know there are BSL-4’s here in the first place, sir." Taekwoon wouldn’t allow Wonsik to be scolded for no reason. "Any documentation would be locked up."

"Then unlock it, agent," the commander ordered. "Start from the CEO’s office and avoid security."

"Yes, sir." Wonsik terminated the connection and looked over at Taekwoon with a frown. "You’re not helping, you know."

Taekwoon snorted and shook his head, refusing to acknowledge the truth in his partner’s words. Ever since Wonsik called the commander out, the latter had taken to punishing his partner without due cause and Taekwoon couldn’t stand by while such a thing went on. Not that he and the commander got along before, but now every conversation seemed to escalate faster and faster. Perhaps the day of his reassignment approached more quickly than Taekwoon previously believed. With a quiet, steadying breath, he reminded himself that if left without a barrier, the commander would be free to tear into Wonsik without remorse. A level head would benefit them all, but Wonsik the most.

"Sorry," Taekwoon apologized after another moment of heated silence before he exhaled, releasing the tension in his shoulders with it.

"You don’t have to go to war for me, you know that, right?" Wonsik asked as he tapped away at the device on his wrist, allowing TS Pharma’s blueprints to blink up between them. "I’m a big boy."

"I know you are." Taekwoon grimaced as he circumvented the holo separating them. "Here, building 78. Seventeenth floor."

He reached out to the holo and a glow followed his finger as he traced it back down the hall they traversed minutes before. Up a set of stairs, down the main causeway connecting all the buildings, but Wonsik interrupted as he tapped a different area of the holo, a raised hallway that paralleled Taekwoon’s route.

"We’ll get a better view up here," Wonsik said, drawing his own path to the tallest building and the suite at the top.

Nodding, Taekwoon followed Wonsik’s finger with his own, tracing the path up the hall, to the elevator, and then down the upper walkway. Wonsik had a knack for finding the high ground, which must contribute to his consistently high scores in their annual testing. Taekwoon hoped he would never see the day when Wonsik walked out of one of those not grinning from ear to ear. Granted, the close quarters group was competitive too, but in a very different way; battle scars garnered more respect than any decoration dotting a uniform.

"Copy." Taekwoon double-checked his person for magazines and his knife before nodding.

The hallway just outside remained as empty as ever and the two quickly doubled back to the elevator they passed earlier. Wonsik called the elevator and leaned against the wall casually, though Taekwoon felt his eyes on him. Glancing up, Taekwoon met Wonsik’s gaze and nodded again; the latter didn’t need to say anything to scold him for his open insubordination. Despite the many who cowered before Taekwoon, Wonsik rarely flinched or so much as batted a lash when facing his moods.

"I need your head in the mission." His partner dropped his voice, soft with a concern undue to the situation.

"My head’s always in the mission," Taekwoon replied, though he didn’t miss how Wonsik’s eyebrow quirked upward. "When we’re in the field."

"Nice save." Wonsik at least doted him with a hint of a smile, something that warmed Taekwoon from his toes up. "Don’t let him under your skin. I need your best more than he does."

With a small smirk of his own, Taekwoon looked back to the elevator, whose doors swept open at that moment. At least something still bowed before his glare. Wonsik jabbed the little button for the seventeenth floor and reholstered his pisol so he could unshoulder his rifle. As soon as they emerged from the elevator car, the sunshine of the late morning nearly blinded both of them. Such clear-skied days had become unusual in the past few years, even more so since the Environmental Safety Agency officially declared the nature preserves beyond the dome hazardous. From where he and Wonsik stood, Taekwoon could see the borders of the dome that arched high above their heads. From the maze of the streets, one could almost pretend they weren’t all just mice in a very nice cage. They all owed their lives to the atmospheric processors that filtered the air and did something called ‘reductive-oxygenation’ that he frankly didn’t understand. All he knew was that they woke up morning after morning to hear the news reminding them how grateful he should be to an agency more enigmatic than his own.

"Look, you can see the edge of the dome from here," Wonsik marveled aloud, tapping the wide swath of glass that surrounded them.

"I need your head in the mission," Taekwoon replied as he padded down the carpeted hall.

Wonsik chuckled and looked down to the rabble much further below. The dancing lights of UCTF vehicles remained at the front gates and the muffled gunfire sounded more like that of children’s toys at this distance.

"Once we secure the Parasite." Taekwoon put an immediate damper on any ideas of sniping from a hallway with glass for cover.

Without any notice from the hostiles below, they crossed to building 78 and soon the heavy doors framed by golden double-helices greeted them.

"This is it." Wonsik nodded his head toward the doors and Taekwoon braced himself against one as he pressed one hand against the other.

He counted down on three fingers before he pushed it open, pistol at the ready, but like the rest of the facility, the office remained empty. Had the entire company collectively taken the day off? That would explain how the Syndicate got past the security systems in broad daylight, but none of it made sense. TS Pharma was a top-tier pharmaceutical company, second to none, though brokers had recently questioned the long-term viability of its current spending habits with so many patent expirations coming up in the next few years. He could boast to his and Wonsik’s stealth, but they had never come up against literally zero resistance in their history.

"Bathroom," Wonsik whispered, breaking Takewoon from his silent paranoia.

One last room to check and then they would scope out the rest of the office. As before, Wonsik leveled his rifle at the door and Taekwoon stood beside it with his hand curled around the door knob. Another count down and he pushed in.

A strangled scream greeted them and Taekwoon didn’t hesitate to step through the doorway, pistol raised. Instead of a hostile, though, Taekwoon only saw a man tied to the toilet within, chest arched back at a painful angle. A strip of fabric gagged him and as soon as Taekwoon stepped to the side, he saw the source of the uncomfortable positioning. Zipties bound the man to the piping of the toilet, wrists to his ankles down behind the porcelain.

"What the hell?" Wonsik murmured to himself as he swung his rifle back over his shoulder.

"Go check the desk for a location," Taekwoon said as he plucked his knife from its sheath at his collar. "I’ll free him."

"Got it," Wonsik replied before retreating back into the office and leaving Taekwoon alone with the strangely-bound man.

He took a moment to regard the unfortunate man before him, the blood that splattered the front of his gray suit in a pattern inconsistent with any visible wounds. As Taekwoon knelt down to pull the fabric free of the prisoner’s mouth, the latter shook his head fervently, sweat flying from his dark hair. Frowning, Taekwoon stopped before he touched it, instead ducking around to the side so he could at least free the poor guy’s ankles. As soon as he sliced through the plastic ziptie, though, the man’s struggle intensified tenfold and that same muffled scream as before echoed in the small bathroom around them.

"It’ll be alright," Taekwoon tried to soothe the man, but the latter only struggled more. "I won’t hurt you."

The screaming continued and Taekwoon pressed himself further against the wall to avoid the flailing legs that threatened to deck him. Nothing about the man seemed dangerous, except the man’s panic and the blood that oozed from an unknown source.

"We’ll need a medic," Taekwoon called into the room behind him.

That, at least, seemed to calm the prisoner enough for Taekwoon to cut free the second ziptie. Taekwoon should have been ready for the hands that seized him by his tactical vest and pulled him in closer. In testing, such an easily avoidable grab would almost certainly cost him fifteen points. As he reached up for his assailant’s wrist, the other thrust his arms out, slamming Taekwoon against the wall with a force that sent stars bursting across his vision. Instinct stepped in and Taekwoon kicked off from the wall, sending the man sprawling backward toward the toilet he’d just been freed from. The man’s head collided with the porcelain with a crack and the grip on Taekwoon’s vest loosened. Stumbling upright, Taekwoon glanced up to find Wonsik at the doorway to the bathroom, pistol raised. A quick look down told him that the man had been knocked out, but likely would not be so for long.

Rather than take the time to regroup himself, Taekwoon seized his attacker by the collar and pulled him toward the door. The thin fabric posing as a gag fell free to the bathroom floor, but Taekwoon ignored it. Already, the man seemed to be orienting again and Wonsik produced a pair of handcuffs from his vest.

"You okay?" Wonsik asked as he pushed the man through the door into the office.

Taekwoon accepted the handcuffs as he stepped back into the office without an answer. His body was too lit up with adrenaline to trust himself to speak right now, so he focused instead on the man in the gray suit blinking his eyes open. Before the man could gain his feet, Taekwoon flipped him over onto his chest.

"No!" The man screamed out, fervently attempting to roll over despite his uncoordinated flailing.

Taekwoon brought up his arms to defend from the hits and the man turned onto his back. From under the wrinkled and bloodstained suit, a metal edge glinted out at Taekwoon, a small blue triangle at the corner. A knife. Without another moment’s hesitation, Taekwoon pushed himself forward and knelt down on the man’s chest.

Beneath him, he heard a quiet beep.

Taekwoon’s heart seized up into his throat, but once more instinct moved. He rolled back, throwing the man toward the window and fully anticipating it to break under the force.

It didn’t.


	3. THREE

Just as Wonsik turned back toward the desk, his world exploded in a blaze of heat and noise. One moment he stood on his own two feet and the next ‘up’ seemed entirely irrational. He knew better than to try and brace himself on anything. So, he curled up and waited for the world to cease its spinning. Something very solid stopped him and he focused on breathing first and foremost. Every breath sent electrifying stabs of pain through his limbs but he forced his chest to move. He cracked his eyes open with through sheer willpower, but smoke clouded them before he could see more than blurry splotches. Somewhere far off and distant, something crackled to life, spitting words that Wonsik hardly understood. Angry, harsh, edging along his senses like a razor. He pried his eyes open to find the source and this time found that much of the smoke had been thinned by the gaping hole in the office. The windows simply no longer existed and the desk pulverized to shards that decorated the burning carpet.

His eyes fell upon one particular section of the blaze and the lump of black fabric that moved in strange, jerking movements. He blinked a moment or two before recognizing the outline of firm shoulders struggling to remove a burning tactical vest.

"Fire," Wonsik murmured as he staggered to his knees and crawled as fast as he could. "You’re on fire, Taekwoon."

Before he could reach his partner, though, the tactical vest had been cut free and tossed toward the crumbling corner of the office. Wonsik looped his arms under Taekwoon’s shoulders and wrenched him toward the double doors. While Taekwoon tried to help, the body armor usually concealed by black fabric kept catching on the carpet beneath them and so Wonsik stood to drag him out into the hall. It still felt too close, too dangerous, and he refused to stop until Taekwoon grunted out his name.

"Huh?" Wonsik noticed they were halfway down an unknown hallway, far away from the office.

"Wonsik." Taekwoon coughed and Wonsik stopped pulling so he could kneel down behind his partner.

Wonsik curled his arms around the other, holding him upright as he caught his breath. At such a proximity, he could smell the acrid perfume of death that wafted from Taekwoon, but held him even closer for it, tangling his fingers in dark hair.

"I’m okay," Taekwoon finally said when he leaned back against Wonsik with a steadying breath.

Only then did Wonsik get a better look at Taekwoon. His partner’s trousers had been scorched and shredded by the blast and the armor underneath sheared into sharp edges. Ash dusted every inch of his pale skin and when Taekwoon coughed again, more of it sprayed from his mouth. Wonsik realized a moment later the ash was the remains of the man Taekwoon fought in the bathroom. He closed his arms tighter around Taekwoon and buried his face in his hair.

"Don’t move," Wonsik murmured into those dark tendrils, anchoring himself in the other man’s presence.

The moment was brutally interrupted by the crackling of Taekwoon’s ear piece.

"What the hell was that?” Commander Kim Jiwon’s voice filtered through the static. “Agents, respond.”

Taekwoon reached up for the transmitter, but Wonsik reached down for his wrist.

"Don’t." He wanted just one moment without anger to rejoice in Taekwoon’s life.

Shaking his head, Taekwoon didn’t stop the motion and pressed his finger against the transmitter. Wonsik leaned back to give Taekwoon room to talk.

"Hostile tied up like a civillian," Taekwoon said, his voice still unsteady.

Wonsik stepped in when his partner began coughing again. “There was an explosive of some kind on his chest.”

"Are you saying you didn’t notice a bomb strapped to someone’s chest, agent?" the commander replied.

Taekwoon looked like he wanted to crush something, possibly the commander’s head. Rather than allowing his partner to get himself written up for insubordination, Wonsik pulled the transmitter from Taekwoon’s ear and leapt up away from him.

"Yes, sir," Wonsik began, but didn’t get far into his explanation.

"You’re to report to me as soon as you get back on how exactly a sniper didn’t spot an explosive, Agent Ravi," Commander Kim ordered. "Secure the Parasite and do nothing else."

"Sir—-" Wonsik was about to mention the fact they barely survived, that Taekwoon likely had an injury if not from the fight then the blast.

"For now, we’ll blame your mistake on VIX. Those are your orders, don’t deviate from them again." The commander cut the transmission.

"We didn’t deviate from your orders," Wonsik grumbled to himself as he tucked the transmitter into his intact vest. "Shithead."

After all, Commander Kim instructed them to search the CEO’s office for information on the moved BSL-4 lab. On top of all that, if he and Taekwoon hadn’t been pushed back again for armor upgrades, the new heat sensors likely would have detected the explosive. If Wonsik didn’t know better, he’d suspect the commander of trying to kill them, but even the commander wouldn’t take out his best team and effectively cripple the UCTF, especially not with emerging terrorist threats like VIX.

"He won’t listen to anyone," Taekwoon said as he gingerly got to his feet, wincing once upright.

Wonsik hurried back over to him but before he could offer a helping hand, Taekwoon waved him away.

"I’m okay." Taekwoon straightened and a brightness shone in his eyes that certainly didn’t back up his words. "Did you get the location?"

"Yeah." Wonsik tapped at the Portable Data Unit on his wrist.

The holo flickered as it rose into the air, the edges wavering and bending despite Wonsik’s attempt to stabilize the image. Before he could speak, however, an alarm over head shrieked. His whole body froze at the sound, heart closing off his throat as his head slowly rebooted. In his peripheral vision, Taekwoon moved before Wonsik could, though with heavier steps than the latter knew him by despite losing his tactical vest to the blast. Wonsik stared longer than he should, his head vibrating with the shrill alarm. Grace had loosed her hold on his partner and now Taekwoon seemed more like a rhino at the ballet than a martial arts expert.

And still Taekwoon moved and breathed faster than him. His fingers closed around Wonsik’s wrist and pulled. Something finally gave way and Wonsik’s chest loosened. He found air again, found a bolt of adrenaline to push his legs to move. The BSL-4 lab would lock down in the event of a fire, or an intruder, and their window would shut in a matter of minutes.

He swallowed and set off at the fastest pace he could manage, legs pumping furiously underneath him, Taekwoon on his heels. Building 25, he’d read, finished construction three years ago in compliance with the changed permit requirements except one. Rather than moving said laboratory off-campus to prevent the easy spread of a contagion through the company’s ten thousand plus employees, the chief executives at TS Pharma decided to house it in their previously-condemned building. Calling the construction ‘rennovation’ kept the UCTF off their asses. While Wonsik wasn’t blind enough to hold the UCTF as a paragon of good, they did at least try to provide order in a city rife with corruption and stagnant politics. Or so he thought until the UCTF took direct control of the atmospheric processors at Commander Kim Jiwon’s order; that was the first time they fought openly and the commander made sure to never forget it.

As they turned the corner, Wonsik spotted the stairwell he’d taken note of moments before the blast destroyed the datapad he’d been reading. Without hesitation, he leapt with two feet, his stomach rising at the drop to the first landing. A spike of pain sliced through his feet but they still had seventeen floors to go and sheer minutes to descend them. As Wonsik pivoted to take the second half of the flight down to the sixteenth, he noticed Taekwoon taking each step rather than Wonsik’s reckless approach. By the time they covered two floors, his partner held a hand to his side and his breathing came in hard gasps. When Wonsik tried to slow, however, Taekwoon waved him on.

"Lab will lock if we don’t—-" Taekwoon gasped, his face contorting in a candid pain that made Wonsik’s gut twist in fear.

The concussive waves from an explosion rarely treated anyone gently, even a fully-armored UCTF agent. Internal bleeding in a close quarters fighter was a death sentence.

"Look, it’s only—-" Wonsik began to explain before realising his words.

All literature on the Parasite from his training days spelled out just how easily the contagion would decimate a contained population like the one under the Dome and that was years ago. If the Syndicate or VIX got hold of it, UCTF still had the backup measure of control of the atmospheric processors, but a weaponized bioweapon would find a way.

"I’m fine," Taekwoon’s voice sharpened as he sped up and overtook Wonsik in a not-so-silent fuck you.

Right. God forbid anyone be worried about Taekwoon’s health. Wonsik knew his anger to be irrational, but that didn’t stop it in the least. Even a year of watching him emerge from testing sessions covered in hard-won bruises had yet to quell Wonsik’s worries. Taekwoon didn’t do things halfway, not even in their relationship.

And now Taekwoon bounded down the stairs like Wonsik had initially, little care behind his movements like he had cushion for days underneath him. Rather than be left behind in his worries, Wonsik pushed himself harder despite the echoes rattling through his own bones. This wasn’t a competition, he had to remind himself as they consumed flights of stairs in seconds flat, but a mutual goal.

Their feet finally touched down against the ground floor, but down the hall, the shutters to the lab grinded toward the carpet. Behind them, Wonsik could see a silhouette, a figure who turned toward them just as quickly. Wonsik threw the last reserves of his energy into his legs just as they threatened to give out on him. Twenty feet, ten feet. He wanted to be liquid lightning, for his body to simply dissolve through the narrowing space between the metal shutter and the floor. His head spun and wavered like he might do just that, too light to sit so high on his body. Wonsik shoved his fingers beneath the descending steel and braced his knees square underneath him as he pulled with everything he had left in his body, muscles burning. The shutter did not so much as slow and Wonsik pulled out of the way as it closed the last few inches to the ground. Next to him, Taekwoon nearly collapsed before the shutter, faltering in his last few steps so he leaned against the metal grate that separated them from the lab. For too brief a moment, his partner slumped against the steel before he staggered upright and to the keypad beside the door.

Wonsik dug into his tactical vest for the C-gummy and a detonator wire, which Taekwoon accepted with a small smile. Sweat drained down his partner’s face and down over his curved lip. If in any over situation, Wonsik would be sorely tempted for a taste, but between the ash that still caked Taekwoon’s features and the risk of a bioweapon release tempered the spark of desire that rose hot in his belly. Taekwoon sculpted a tiny heart out of the explosive gummy and slid a detonator wire into the shape.

"You’re cute," Wonsik cajoled even as he stepped forward to light the wire.

Taekwoon simply regarded him with a couple innocent slow blinks and Wonsik did his best to quiet the worries of before. They ducked around the corner again as the small explosion crackled and Wonsik produced his laser torch from his vest. Without the security keypad, the tension holding the shutter down should release, making it easier to cut through. He ignited the torch to press against the steel. Of all the tasks they could be set to, using the laser torch ranked last on his list. The torch bit into the steel with a sound that made Wonsik’s teeth itch and sent spiders up his arm. After a few seconds, he couldn’t stand the rattling in his brain and he pulled the torch back to kick at the little flap.

The shutter belched gas out at them, smoke if not steam or something worse. Ducking, he pulled Taekwoon down with him and Wonsik cursed their luck.

"The torch!" Taekwoon cried out and seized Wonsik’s hand to flip off the switch.

"Huh?" Wonsik frowned, his brain still vibrating.

Just as the torch turned off, the gas overhead ignited with a swell of flame and Wonsik ducked further to save his mohawk. Shit, he forgot about the new disinfection procedures for the BSL-4’s. After all, it wasn’t like he waltzed through one every day. There had to be some kind of alternate access, an emergency exit, otherwise this would never get past building inspectors. He struggled to remember the datapad and its contents as his ears rang. They’d have to go up and out the window above and whoever beat them to the lab already had a head start on them.

"C’mon." Wonsik crawled away from the blaze, ignoring the niggling feeling he was forgetting something important.

His limbs refused to cooperate with him, his legs like lead weights and even his arms complained at his commands. Taekwoon stretched a hand down to him and Wonsik honestly wondered how his partner could still stand after it all. They had a mission just the day before and Wonsik himself had seen the black and blue covering Taekwoon’s torso, today had unleashed even more abuse on his partner’s body. Something was very wrong with Taekwoon and Wonsik didn’t know what. For now, though, he would keep his questions to himself, until they had time to really talk.

With Taekwoon’s help, they both scrambled up the stairs and smashed through the windows above the lab, only to watch as a figure carrying a reinforced case climbed onto the back of a motorcycle. The rider glanced back for a moment before disappearing out through the side gate of the facility.

"Shit," Wonsik cursed, though his body quietly sang praises at the moment of stillness.

"I’ll tell the commander." Taekwoon held his hand out for his earpiece, though Wonsik wasn’t in any hurry to produce it.

He regarded his partner with a frown but gave in to the darkening gaze and prepared himself to listen to a neverending argument.


	4. FOUR

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to post this over here, sorry! <3

Every breath sent a rippling pulse of agony down his body; Taekwoon could hardly contain the desire to scratch at his skin to make it stop. If not for Wonsik's near-constant glances, Taekwoon might have torn his skin off, but the desire to finish the mission without further incident fueled his self-control. When Wonsik turned the steering wheel a little too sharply, Taekwoon fought down the wince that threatened to break through his composure. Someone might have gifted him with some rebar along with the hard plastic of the seat belt that pressed against his side. He couldn't quite tell.

"The Commander has an APB out." Wonsik's voice swam around his ears, watery and thin. "There's more than us looking for whoever this is."

"Keep driving," Taekwoon ground out between his clenched teeth though his center of gravity righted again.

Even if the pain did slow him down--- which he assured himself it didn't---, the Parasite took precedence and the Commander made damn sure they didn't forget that. Wonsik's opinion didn't change the equation any. Surely his partner knew that. Heavy silence settled between them like a wall and Taekwoon didn't bother trying to break it, setting himself to the task of watching for the license plate. Too many minutes distanced them from the fox they chased like hounds and the UCTF had only begun mobilizing, leaving support just out of reach. He felt as if he stood on a plank on the open sea, facing the kraken with little more than a knife.

A glint out the window broke his reverie and he recognized the string of letters and numbers that danced into his view.

"There!" He shouted and Wonsik stomped on the brakes hard enough to steal Taekwoon's breath as the seat belt compressed his chest.

Regardless, as soon as he could, he unbelted himself and surged up out of the car. Behind him, Wonsik gave the Commander their location and codes in a hushed voice. Taekwoon's head spun as he unholstered his pistol and waded into traffic. Every impact of his heel against pavement sent vibration after vibration through his abused body.

"Taekwoon---!" Wonsik called after him, though car horns obstructed the rest of his words.

Didn't matter, Taekwoon told himself as he read the license plate on the motorcycle again before casting a long look up the side of the building. The words 'SM Pharmaceuticals' had been bleached into the building by the dirt and grime that caked the rest of the facade. One of the many corpses that lay before the beastly monopoly TS birthed years ago. As soon as he crossed to the sidewalk, he leaned against the wall beside the door and waited for the world to stop spinning. His insides groaned with each breath he forced into his body; his ribcage might as well have been made of barbed wire that closed in tighter still.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Wonsik hissed, though he took his position opposite Taekwoon.

Breathing out required Taekwoon to steady his stony mask and he looked down at his pistol to avoid Wonsik's gaze. His fingers curled tighter around the familiar metal, but the tips looked more blue than he remembered. Swallowing, he hoped it to be a trick of the light reflecting off his pistol.

"We don't have time for this," Taekwoon whispered back, though not intentionally.

His gut churned worse than ever, exacerbating the acidic fear that ate away at his nerves. They didn't have the option of waiting, not with a bioweapon, not after their mistakes. Still, part of him wanted to exchange the existential risk for his personal safety just this once. When he looked up to meet Wonsik's gaze, heat reflected back at him and Taekwoon's rebellious streak flared again. He didn't need to be taken care of, he didn't need to be babied, he didn't need to make excuses, he didn't need anyone's sympathy, he didn't need whispered words behind his back.

"On three," Taekwoon lowered his voice further to conceal how he struggled to catch his breath.

Despite his complaints, Wonsik raised his rifle and Taekwoon silently thanked his partner's sense of duty. Taekwoon silently counted down on shaky fingers and as the last one lowered, he pulled down on the door handle. Darkness greeted them as they moved forward, Wonsik at his back, boots scuffing against hidden debris. As soon as they cleared the door, Taekwoon closed it behind them with a click. The ambient light of day disappeared and sumberged them in the dark. Wonsik lifted his rifle to his eye and reached up for a button on the scope. Infrared. The rest of their squad received the upgrade long before Commander Kim so much as looked Wonsik's way, despite the latter's high marks. Yet, Wonsik adapted to the new technology without grudge, once he finally received it.

Wonsik raised one hand from the ventral grip and lifted three fingers before brushing them along the wrist of his other hand. Three hostiles. Not in the same room, as no welcoming committee greeted them at the door. Wonsik traced one finger down his own arm. Far off, likely buried in an old lab. With a gentle knock to Wonsik's shoulder, Taekwoon acknowledged the information and stepped forward to take point.

As his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness surrounding them, Taekwoon began to see the faint outlines of the gutted interior. Recently-stirred dust hung in the air like stars, reflecting what little light slithered in through the cracks in the mortar. Above them, the skeleton of a walkway dangled and curved out of sight into a room on the second floor. Taekwoon tapped Wonsik’s shoulder before gesturing upwards and the sniper followed with the scope. If the three weren’t alone, jumping down from a walkway would make for an ambush Taekwoon wasn’t sure he could fight off in his current state. After a beat of silence, Wonsik shook his head and Taekwoon exhaled. He knocked on his chest plate twice and rotated one hand in front of the other, earning another nod from his partner as they exchanged places. Taekwoon lead the way to the stairs, as his chest struggled with the simple task of breathing. Surprise would be their only advantage going forward and Taekwoon took each stair as if each were made of eggshells. At the landing, he pivoted and turned toward the walkway as they rose up to meet it. His lungs shuddered in his chest and he forced down the cough that bubbled up his throat.

No. No.

His chest seized and a barking cough wracked him.

Wire whistled through the air. A blade sunk into flesh with a squelch.

Wonsik screamed and as Taekwoon turned, he watched his partner crumble to the ground, hand braced to his shoulder. A clatter of a rifle later and Taekwoon saw them, dressed in all black. Without a moment’s hesitation, two of the trio surged forward while the third wrenched an unseen line that earned another cry of pain from Wonsik. Instead of meeting them head on, he squared himself before stepping back and they followed him. His gaze set on Wonsik beyond them as the latter writhed on the walkway, eyes blown wide with pain. Anger snaked hot through his belly.

“Take the Parasite and go!” echoed somewhere behind him and Taekwoon refused to allow anyone else past him.

He curled his fingers around the stair railing and leaned over into empty air. As his nerves danced under his skin, he swung his momentum and tightened his body like a missile. He hit one like a diver, sending the other sprawling past Wonsik and over the railing. With that fleshy springboard, he arched high and his fingers found the railing again. His legs threaded the frame of his arms and sent another tumbling down the stairs. As he slid along the railing in gravity’s grip, he reached out for the ankle of the third and yanked him down just as well. The steel beneath Taekwoon bent and sprang free from the combined weight. Taekwoon’s arm slammed down against the metal stair and his fingers closed on instinct. With the grip on the edge, Taekwoon climbed back up to face the two remaining hostiles.

The attacker standing nearest Wonsik flicked her wrist and once more wire whistled through the air. Taekwoon ducked as the blade [sliced] through a section of his hair, but he used what he hoped would be the weapon’s recoil to kick up at the barehanded attacker whose hood he recognized. Their APB would go cold if Taekwoon didn’t get information from him. Fuck.

Taekwoon spun low, taking the ground from underneath the hooded assailant, before another whistle echoed too close in his ear. He rolled back, as far as he could, as far out of reach as he could, but his chest protested the movement, sending stabs of pain along his side. His vision blurred at the edges and he staggered as he climbed back to his feet. He swept one arm to the side and his fingers met the wire still tight with tension. No recoil. No he couldn’t wait for the recoil. He only had one foot down, one stable underneath him. It would have to do. Before his center of gravity balanced, he threw himself up, his legs sweeping over his head in a punishing arc. He expected to hit his assailant on the way down, but instead of a wrist or knee, his foot landed on the unbroken railing of the walkway and a meter higher than he intended. Aborting the move would result in a fall to the foyer below, but he wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t kick Wonsik if he followed through.

No choice and no time, he spun with the momentum. His heel collided with a jaw and the wire went slack beneath his fingers. Together the two of them slammed down against the walkway inches from Wonsik. Taekwoon twisted his wrist and sent the weapon skittering into the room he spotted earlier. Shit. If anyone else remained they would---

An elbow struck him in the temple and he rolled to the side, hands scrabbling for a face, a jaw, anything to initiate a kill with. His fingers found the bundle of nerves below his opponent’s ear and he struck with all of his weight.

Wonsik screamed again and Taekwoon swung upright, his vision strobing as he focused on his partner. The hooded attacker gripped a piece of the broken railing in his hand, body arching for another swing. Taekwoon’s eyes traced the path and it ended at Wonsik’s shoulder. His chest burned as he lunged forward.

Taekwoon reached out for the glint in the dark and his palm met the cold steel of the broken railing. The impact vibrated up his arm and his fingers curled about the weapon on instinct. With a sharp pull, he tugged his attacker toward him and greeted their face with the heel of his boot as he kicked upward. His body cried out at the movement; his chest seemed to have had enough of him. He swung with his momentum, his other foot snapped his attacker's head to the side with an ugly crack. The railing loosed from the other's grip before they dropped limp to the ground.

So much for using that one for information.

His breath crackled in his chest like tissue paper and Taekwoon fell to his knees before he could stop himself, hands braced on the ground. The pipe clanged against the concrete under him, sending another course of reverberations pounding against his senses. Gunfire echoed far off, in a different plane of existence as Taekwoon's darkened and stretched at the edges. As he descended, Taekwoon listened to his stuttering heartbeat until the maw of the void swallowed him whole.

\---Clamps under his shoulders, turning him. He reached out with warped, sinuous claws to stop them---

\---but the choir of devils singing at his shoulder foretold of scorched earth at his hands---

\---Copper. That was the smell he thought---

\---turquoise swam into his vision. His fingers twitched against stiff, startched fabric and Taekwoon forced his eyes wider. Taekwoon spread his hand across the jeweltone shadows that painted his legs in dizzying waves. When he jerked his wrist to the side, it collided with something soft and strinkingly orange.

"Ow, hey!" Wonsik's baritone complained and Taekwoon frowned.

A moment later, he made to sit up but pressure on his shoulder stopped him just as quick.

"Woah, woah," Wonsik said as he extended his other arm to hold down both of Taekwoon's shoulders. "Stay still for a moment, jesus."

"Wonsik?" Taekwoon sounded more like a scared mouse than a killer.

"Yeah, hold on," Wonsik answered and released one of Taekwoon's shoulders to fiddle with something the latter couldn't see, but Wonsik's face returned nonetheless, though edged with a grimace.

"You're an asshole." Wonsik sat back when Taekwoon didn't fight to sit up again. "I hope you know that."

Taekwoon raised an eyebrow, but took relief in his partner's choice in words. Sighing, Wonsik leaned even further in his chair and scrubbed one hand across his face.

"Did we secure the Parasite?” Taekwoon tried to remember what happened last, but found his memory coming in only bits and pieces.

“Is that all you care about?” Wonsik replied, his voice cracking at the edges as he turned his head in his hand.

Blinking, Taekwoon attempted to put the pieces together. The call to TS Pharma, the explosion, the hatch belching fire, the car, one, two, three, four, five assailants.

And Wonsik’s scream. It tore through him, gutted him as he continued to stare at his partner, at the man he shared most mornings with, the man he celebrated an anniversary with just the day before, if one drink and bending the sniper over the latter’s kitchen table counted as ‘celebrating.’ His eyes stung, but the water clinging to Wonsik’s lashes lingered in trails down the cheeks Taekwoon covered in kisses not long ago.

“We got it,” Wonsik rasped out, his gaze settled somewhere in the middle between them, somewhere Taekwoon couldn’t reach. “Or,” a heavy chuckle “they got it. The backup.”

“We failed?” The words slid past Taekwoon’s lips before he could stop them.

His partner’s brow furrowed deeper than he had ever seen, squeezing out another surge of moisture that followed the paths across dirt and blood and bruises alike. Wonsik’s breath hitched and he tried to hide behind one hand. Frowning, Taekwoon followed the fingers to shaking shoulders and--- wait, no. One shoulder shook, the other had been swaddled with bandages. A corner of a med patch peeked out from under the white edges, tipped with a blue triangle.

“Wonsik?” Taekwoon reached out one hand to circle his fingers around his partner’s thumb.

Heavy sighs brushed across his fingers but Wonsik made no move to shake the contact. It was the most they could do within the boundaries of the UCTF building, perhaps stretching the rules further than necessary, but Taekwoon didn’t know what else to do. Wonsik didn’t usually hide away like this and any reports might as well not exist for all the good they did him right now.

“All four hostiles were killed.” Wonsik stumbled over his words. “They thought we were dead, I thought you were dead. You weren’t breathing, Taekwoon. Fuck. One of ours went down in the fight too.”

Taekwoon’s breath caught in his throat. “Four?”

Wonsik’s gaze sharpened, but for the moment Taekwoon focused on digging through the memories mixed in with the pain. Three hostiles Wonsik indicated while down in the foyer, then three more when they stepped foot on the upper walkway. Six, but he fought… one over the railing, two down the stairs, then whip and hood. Five. No, could it have been four? He counted again, but was interrupted by a gentle knock at the door. Wonsik wiped his face and leaned back in his chair again, fingers releasing Taekwoon’s and the absence made them twitch.

“Come on in,” his partner answered and cleared his throat.

“You asked for burgers, right?” Kim Kibum, Agent Key, poked his head through.

“Yeah, the... yeah.” Wonsik stood and crossed the room, blocking Taekwoon’s view of the other agent. “What do I--” “Put it on the tab.” Key’s voice echoed around Taekwoon.

Wonsik didn’t return immediately to the chair. The bag crinkled as it exchanged hands, but his partner lingered at the door. One beat. Two, three, four, and then the door slammed shut. Taekwoon watched Wonsik as he turned slowly and moved to scoot his chair closer to Taekwoon’s bed.

“Got your favorite.” Wonsik smiled, but it lacked the sniper’s usual spark.

And yet Taekwoon couldn’t quite chalk it up to the stress of the day or the injured shoulder. He nodded and accepted the food as Wonsik held it out to him, but otherwise ate in stony silence.

“Look.” Wonsik wiped his hands on the paper napkins as he finished his part of the meal. “It might not be a big deal to you--- I know CQ has a thing for scars--- but I thought you died today. And I couldn’t do anything about it.”

The sniper set down the napkins once he deemed himself cleaned and curled one hand around Taekwoon’s, threading their fingers together in a clear violation of protocol.

“That’s not going to happen again,” Wonsik continued.

Taekwoon shifted on the bed, the cheap mattress crackling beneath his head. Something was wrong, something was very wrong. As he opened his mouth to speak, though, a nurse entered through the same door Key did but instead of a bag of burgers, she carried a vial and a capped syringe.

“Your first round of medications just cleared, Agent Leo,” she chirped as Wonsik leaned back in his chair in a hurry, releasing Taekwoon’s hand. “You should be feeling better in no time.”

“Can they wait?” he asked, his gaze set on the sniper who averted his eyes.

“Orders are orders.” The nurse barely shrugged as she uncapped the needle and plunged it through the vial’s membrane. “Commander wants to talk to you as soon as you’re ship shape again.”

“Please, just a few minutes.” Taekwoon didn’t want to finish this conversation later, didn’t want to postpone it any longer.

“No can do.” The nurse turned the vial upside down and drew a clear liquid into it. “I don’t make the rules around here. Now just relax.”

She flicked the side of the syringe once before she pressed the needle into the tube stemming from the intravenous line at his elbow.

“It’s okay, Leo.” Wonsik failed to reassure him and Taekwoon felt as if the universe had turned on its head, trying to shake him out in the process. “It’s okay, I promise.”

No, no, no, no, this was all wrong. He didn’t want to be put under until the spliced viruses now running through his veins patched up his wounds. He wanted to talk to Wonsik, to sort… to sort things… to…

 

He woke up to the growl of the PA saying something about intruders and an empty chair beside his bed.


	5. FIVE

Through the slow curl of his cigarette's smoke, Wonsik watched the distant glimmers of life under the dome. Every light that blinked back at him represented not one soul but many, suffering loss with the rise and set of the sun. Some days, he could turn away, focus on who and what he loved rather than the miserable chorus that he never seemed to listen to until he, too, descended into grief.

He didn't have nearly enough energy to stand up straight where he leaned on the railing, fingers twined tightly together. His mind filled again and again with the sight of Taekwoon's still chest. He attempted to wipe it away, but every blink of concentration brought blue lips and scorched skin back to the surface. With every breath, he struggled to wake Taekwoon, to remember thirty compressions, tilt, and two breaths while pain arced through his shoulder in bursts of lightning.

Rest did not come easily to Wonsik. 

"He's alive, he's alive, _he's alive._ " Wonsik muttered to himself when he drew the cigarette from his mouth to breathe.

Of course, he and Taekwoon were not invincible; they could never escape death's leash, but he wasn't ready. Not today. Not to lose the man he loved more than anything else in the world. Heat rose in his throat at the thought, radiating pain from beneath his collar. Not even the cool evening air could soothe the burn nor his sour stomach and the memories of a still chest refused to release their hold on his psyche. 

Wonsik snubbed out his cigarette inches from the filter and sank to his knees behind the steel balusters that hid the rest of the balcony from view. He should be downstairs, at Taekwoon's side, a friendly face upon awakening, but Key had suggested taking a smoke break in the first place. Their collective leftover cigarette butts filled a small ashtray by the door, though the task rotation of cleaning it out fell on Key this month. While he had told Taekwoon of the habit, the latter refused to participate and found a solitary activity of his own.

Now, the ritual seemed pointless for the lack of comfort. As he leaned forward onto his knees, burying his face in his forearms, Wonsik found more questions and fewer answers. He clearly remembered searching the upper walkway with his infrared scope. Not even the UCTF’s new infrared-resistant suits had been field-tested yet. He had heard something about adjusting Mylar foil or reflecting thermal signatures, but not quite understood the jargon. All he knew was he and Taekwoon would receive the upgrade last unless the commander finally took notice of the dangers that lurked around every corner, literally. In the snap of a finger, his best team had been effectively crippled; there was no reason to continue denying them equipment that could be the difference between life and death.

Or so Wonsik hoped. If it took begging on his knees, he would carry the shame to keep Taekwoon out of a premature grave. Though, he supposed, groveling could only take him so far. Today, Wonsik failed to spot an explosive that nearly vaporized Taekwoon, as well as a second set of hostiles. Perhaps what upgrades they did have saved his partner and the error laid entirely with himself. In his gut, thorns erupted, twisted branches that coiled around his heart and snaked up his neck. Not even the distant glitter of the dome could wipe the guilt away.

His fault. _His fault._

Empty eyes stared into the dark of the warehouse, blue lips parted and frozen as Wonsik crawled to him. No _please_ god no. Not Taekwoon. A bang of the metal door, boots clamoring up steps, and gloved hands pulled his partner away. To save him. To free him of Wonsik’s fatal incompetence. Wonsik shook his head again and pressed his hands against his damp eyes. _Fuck_. He had to see Taekwoon, to witness the rise and fall of his partner’s chest. Key would understand his absence; he’d nearly lost Minho earlier this year in a raid fouled up by another episode of bureaucratic bullshit.

Climbing up to his feet, Wonsik dusted himself off before returning to the elevator. His hand shook as he jabbed the call button and he pocketed it just as quickly. Once he saw Taekwoon again, things would be alright. After all, his partner lived and breathed in the best medbay under the dome. 

The doors slid open to reveal Commander Kim Jiwon, arms crossed and leaning against one wall of the elevator. For a moment, Wonsik blinked at the sight and the commander stood up straight when their gaze met.

“Commander,” Wonsik said with a bow of his head before stepping into the car. “Meant to come report to you, since Taekwoon’s sleeping.”

“A tiring day,” the commander replied with a furrowed brow. “Debrief is in the morning, Agent Ravi.”

“But I can give you mine right now,” Wonsik continued. “It could help with bringing down VIX, sir.”

“Debrief is in the morning,” his commander repeated and Wonsik struggled to contain the surge of emotion that choked him.

The doors hissed closed and Wonsik at least attempted to not glare directly at his superior. As soon as they did, though, the commander crossed the foot or so between them.

“I’m speaking with Agent Leo first,” the younger man said, dropping his voice but not the steely edge of his tone.

“I said Taek--- Agent Leo’s sleeping,” Wonsik replied, turning his head to the side. “You’re the one who ordered the sedative.”

The commander’s jaw clenched before he spat, “I did no such thing.”

Wonsik straightened and the briar filling his chest wound through his shoulders.

“ _What?_ ” he hissed in return, heat bubbling around the thorns’ edges.

He should have asked to see a badge or some kind of verification of the order, he should have done something, anything, to protect Taekwoon. And yet Wonsik failed him again.

“Describe them to me,” the commander demanded before Wonsik could properly connect the two dots. 

“Tall, dark ha---”

Suddenly engulfed in darkness, the car jerked to a halt and Wonsik stumbled into his commander. A heavy thump shook both occupants to the floor, vibrating through Wonsik’s injured shoulder. Then another. A moment later, emergency lighting flickered to life around them, bathing them in a red bright enough to unnerve Wonsik.

“Sir.” He stumbled up to his feet before a third impact sent the elevator car down a foot. “What the hell?”

“---these _stupid_ fuckers,” the commander muttered, though Wonsik wasn’t sure. 

The former stood and pulled the elevator’s radio from its box. “This is Commander Kim Jiwon, we have intruders. I repeat, this is Commander Kim Jiwon, this is not a drill.”

“Taekwoon,” Wonsik gasped; his partner was helpless downstairs, drugged by someone unknown.

Before either could make another move, the overhead hatch slammed open and a blinking object the size of a fist dropped into the car. Nowhere to move, Wonsik surged forward and snatched up the device, throwing it back out the hatch. He threw himself and the commander to the floor. His shoulder burst with another flare of pain as the car shook around them, metal shuddering, groaning, and then crackling.

And yet the commander climbed to his feet, shoving something against the radio box. The steel doors slid open without a hitch just as another grenade bounced against the floor at his feet. An assailant followed, black body armor smoking and obscuring the emergency lighting. Rather than wait, Wonsik grabbed the commander by his wrist and pulled both of them out into the elevator shaft. A wave from the detonation carried them farther than he expected; he stretched out his bad arm for the thin bars of the access ladder crawling up the wall just as they slammed against it. The commander’s weight pulled Wonsik back and another arc of pain sliced through his shoulder, but he closed his fingers tighter against instinct. Smoke devoured them a moment later.

Wonsik’s heart pounded in his ears, furious throbbing against the ringing that followed. The toes of his boots scraped against the rungs of the ladder before finding purchase. His whole body stretched, his shoulder threatening to call it quits. Rods of pain radiated from his forearm and joined the nightmare at his shoulder through the torn muscles of his bicep. The burden at the end of his good arm swung too and fro before stabilizing beneath him. 

“I can’t---!” he grunted out and the heavy cloud around them choked him.

“I’m on!” Commander Kim shouted back as the tension across Wonsik’s shoulders finally released.

A fit of coughing from below added to his own, but Wonsik didn’t have much time to sit and think about it. He recoiled back to the ladder, his body screaming almost as loud as his head. Find an exit, find something, otherwise they would be cooked here in the elevator shaft. Doors. There had to be doors they could open.

“--- in between floors,” the commander said in between gurgling coughs and Wonsik glanced around for any sign of doors that would open into the rest of the building.

“They’re outside!” Shouts rang from far too close and the cloud around them glowed red with refracting lasers.

They were dead.

Wait. _Outside._

Vent. There had to be an exhaust vent around here. One for every three floors, equipped with a filter and lit in case of emergency. Taekwoon had told him once on a boring job, with the excitement of a man at a breakthrough. Below them, angry yellow lights outlined a hexagonal port. No time.

Wonsik released the rung of the ladder. His heart pressed heavy against his throat as smoke plumed downward with him. He reached out and his good arm snagged another rung of the ladder much lower, smoke sweeping past him like a wave.

“Port!” Wonsik attempted to shout through the adrenaline spiking through his veins and the smoke clouding his lungs.

Close now, he told himself as he struggled to regain his balance on the ladder. He kicked out at the darkness outlined by electric yellow lines and his boot met a metal panel that snapped with the little pressure Wonsik could apply. Metallic clicks echoed overhead and he hoped that meant the commander heard him and would follow. With his good arm, he swung into the vent.

As his center of gravity settled over the solid metal of the vent interior, Wonsik shuddered with relief. He sent up a small prayer of thanks for his partner’s insistence on reading every manual before shifting onto his knees. With his bad arm cradled at his chest, he crawled as best he could, every clank and clang carving into his nerves. His hand stuck to the metal beneath him and squeaked with every move. Keep going. Get to Taekwoon. Ignore the rattling behind him or the smoke that curled around his arms. His knees bumped into the joints of the vent, one after the other, slowing his pace as the presence behind him sped up. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_. He couldn’t see far in front of him in the dark, couldn’t---

His hand met open air as his weight shifted forward. Forward and _down._ He tumbled, limbs twisting against the metal shaft as he dropped. Fear flooded his senses, hot and unbearably tight about him. His body curled, instincts screaming at him to halt his fall. Fingers ground against the smooth siding, knees stretched in an attempt to brace himself.

Then his boot caught on something. His leg screamed at him as it twisted, but his descent slowed. With one shoulder pressed into a corner and the other throbbing furiously against the smooth wall, Wonsik came to a stop. His breath followed a moment later, chest heaving like an engine piston, as the rest of him shook. Looking up the line of his leg to his boot, he saw a valve of some kind trapping his ankle against a pipe.

No time. He closed his eyes and pushed his leg higher, shin pressing against the rubber grooves. White hot pain exploded in his ankle and Wonsik screamed before he could stop himself. 

He quietly hoped he would be spending some quality time with his partner in the medbay soon, rather than an empty bed.

Gasping, he pushed his leg higher and the valve turned. As the rubber piece rotated, the wall of the vent above him opened, shutter first before rising completely. Another half-rotation and a wave of pain later, Wonsik stretched up to the opening and his fingers caught on a rough handle of some kind.

Fucking _fuck_ yes. 

He levered himself against the valve and pulled himself up into the opening.

As soon as he crawled inside, squealing metal set his nerves on fire. He glanced out into the vertical vent to see someone descending at a much more controlled pace than he had, pressed against the corners, boots at the walls.

He wasn’t going to wait.

Wonsik crawled a few feet in the dark, hand stretched before him to detect any more sudden openings, until a light emerged from behind him, casting his silhouette against a shutter not more than a yard before him.

“Wonsik!” Commander Kim’s voice vibrated within the vent and for the first time, Wonsik was glad to hear him.

“C’mon, Commander.” Wonsik gestured with his head toward the shutter; the sooner he could get out of this maze, the better.

He manhandled the lever beside the shutter and it rolled open to reveal one of the many air processors in the building. Conveniently, though, the fan that usually circulated filtered air didn’t seem to be on. That meant that the vent floor just beyond the shutter would lead to its external control panels. 

Finally.

When his feet touched linoleum again, Wonsik nearly crumbled to the ground. His ankle didn’t want to cooperate, but it could at least support weight and that’s all he needed to get moving again as the commander climbed out after him.

Rather than trust his voice, Wonsik held his bad arm before him and walked the fingers of his other along his forearm. _Staircase._ Commander Kim nodded, though he looked as if he had sweat an ocean already. 

As soon as the door to the stairway clanged behind them, Wonsik swallowed mouthfuls of air he didn’t think he’d be able to sheer minutes ago. Commander Kim turned the lock and took the concrete stairs as quickly as he could with Wonsik limping behind. At each landing, the commander locked the door, but Wonsik thought nothing of it until, at some point, the commander seized Wonsik by the front of his uniform and pressed him into the stairwell’s shadow. The dark hid half of his superior’s face and the strobes illuminated the other in a slow, blinking red.

“Taekwoon,” Wonsik frowned, his words interrupted by the necessity of breathing. “Taekwoon needs us.”

The commander continued to hold him against the wall, his forearm a bar across Wonsik’s chest. With his other arm, the commander held a finger to his lips. The fire door above rattled against the lock overhead, punctuating the blare of the alarms. Fuck, how had their friends gotten to them so quickly? 

“ _Someone got away from us in the sub-basement_ ,” the radio crackled. “ _East elevator. Just outside the medbay, sir._ ”

Wonsik couldn’t breathe. All of the blood in his body drained into his feet and they moved on sheer terror, ignoring years of training. _Taekwoon._ Yet again, the commander stopped him with a shove that shook Wonsik’s teeth.

“What the hell are you---!”

“There’s a mole in the UCTF,” the commander interrupted, his voice low but sharp as a knife. “We’ve known for some time.”

“What’re you talking about?” Wonsik grunted out as he struggled against his superior’s weight. “Who do…”

It hit him. His ears buzzed as pinpricks of light flashed in the corners of his vision.

“Taekwoon?” His lips moved, the tones vibrated through his throat, but as if someone pulled at the strings.

The silence from the other man clogged Wonsik’s throat with barbed wire as he tried to speak. “You don’t understand, it’s been his whole life. Last May, he skipped Hwasa’s funeral to answer a call. She _raised him,_ she--- you made him choose between family and---”

“I know you and him have been meeting frequently in the last year,” the commander interrupted.

Once more, Wonsik found himself unable to breathe. Shit. _Shit._ They had been so careful, he thought. Or maybe it was Wonsik’s incompetence again, punishing Taekwoon for doing something so simple as loving him. Had he said something while drunk? Who in the sniper crew would rat him out?

“ _East Elevator is heading toward the roof, sir._ ” Commander Kim’s eyes narrowed.

“There’s no way it’s him,” Wonsik struggled against the commander’s arm, but he’d never been good at disarms. “You gotta believe me.”

The commander reached down for the radio and spoke into it, “Meet me at the Northeast corner of the roof, at Helo-1.”

Then, he turned back toward Wonsik, face once again half-obscured by the strobing lights.

“I’m going with you, sir,” Wonsik said, without an ounce of hesitation. “I’ll prove it’s not Taekwoon.”

Unless the commander though he was also a mole, he would at least be willing to allow that much, right? Backup? One-armed, one-legged backup.

“Can you use your arm?” Commander Kim asked, though with a sharp tone that certainly lacked concern.

“No, but I can pick out my partner in a crowd,” Wonsik provided, though a moment later he realized that wouldn’t be too helpful or illuminating. “If he’s with them, no mask is gonna fool me.”

He could practically see the cogs turning in the commander’s head, weighing benefits against risks, Wonsik’s ridiculous idea versus all the possible outcomes.

“If you let him go, you’re both going to be executed for treason,” the commander growled as he released Wonsik from the wall.

Without thinking, Wonsik nodded and stumbled back up the way they came and toward the roof. Taekwoon wasn’t a mole, he was sure of it. Sure, his partner might be a little quick to anger and the most-feared agent in the UCTF but that didn’t mean he would sell them out. Under the facade, Taekwoon was kind, warm, and loving, though Wonsik supposed he might be the only one besides Hwasa who saw that side of him.

Or was that just another mask, to hide something more sinister? Was Taekwoon’s competitive nature all Taekwoon or a future mole searching for opportunity to unravel the UCTF from the inside out?

No. No, that couldn’t... Wonsik wouldn’t believe that. Taekwoon wouldn’t lead him on, Taekwoon wouldn’t have opened up, wouldn’t have loved him so fiercely unless it was all an act. After all, an opportunity to gain the loyalty of another agent within the agency would be priceless. If that was the case, though, why didn’t Taekwoon make hordes of friends instead of one? CQ might be full of assholes, but the sniper crew enjoyed simple things like friendship.

Wonsik shook his head; he wouldn’t doubt Taekwoon. Not now, not ever.

The door to the roof slammed open and Wonsik surged after the commander. In one moment he was searching for broad shoulders and a graceful gait and the next he was facedown on the concrete.


	6. SIX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay. Life and stuff.

“After Agent Ravi escaped last night,” Commander Kim said from the front of the conference room, gesturing toward a diagram of the roof. “Our scientists reported the Parasite to be missing. We believe he is the culprit.”

Taekwoon could feel a hundred eyes burning holes into him where he sat at the back of the room and for once, they snuck beneath his armor, stabbing him in the soft flesh still raw from the news. He stared straight ahead, inhale, exhale, don’t get too wound up or it’s back to the medbay. The commander met his gaze only briefly before continuing.

“Though Agent Leo is not cleared of suspicion, he can provide valuable insight on the defector.” It all sounded so final, as if spades of evidence lay in a neat little box for all of them to see. “Agents Key and Minho are leading the pursuit.”

Said agents stood from their place beside the commander and Taekwoon felt his stomach drop out of him. Wonsik had been nothing but loyal to Key, a helping hand in the field and simulations alike. If his partner were not so loyal to himself, Taekwoon would be tempted to call their relationship flirtatious at the least. That was Wonsik’s nature, though: a friend to all, happy to help whenever called (and he was often called to be a spokesperson of sorts between Taekwoon and others). Perhaps Key had volunteered, to find the truth before jumping to conclusions, but frankly Taekwoon didn’t know the truth himself, no matter how many times he vouched for Wonsik’s innocence.

Key’s gaze fell on him and Taekwoon did not shrink away from it, refused to be seen as weak or in any way complicit with VIX. Dark eyes narrowed before looking away and a shard of pain buried itself in his chest. Breathe. _Breathe._ Don’t get too excited.

“Are there any questions?” Commander Kim asked and, when none came, “Dismissed.”

The few who sat around him sprang up from their chairs in an instant and disappeared into the flow of agents exiting the room. Cowards. Taekwoon did nothing to stop them or anyone else who stepped further away to avoid coming near him. As he sucked in a breath, his chest creaked and he blew it back out just as quickly. The rookies jumped to the side as if they expected him to breathe fire.

“That’s enough, Agent Leo,” Commander Kim scolded from the front of the room.

Taekwoon bit his lip to control the fire raking at his insides; nothing but complete cooperation would help his partner.

“Yes sir,” he answered dutifully, folding his hands on his lap and shutting his eyes in an attempt to ignore the last few agents.

He opened them again when the conference doors clicked shut, to regard the commander, Key, and Minho with as level a look as he could manage.

“We’ve been tracking his movements since his escape,” Minho began, flicking his wrist to bring up a holo of the city. 

CQs were not known to be friendly; Taekwoon and Minho rarely got along, if ever, even on joint missions. That left Wonsik and Key to facilitate enough cooperation to help them all survive. Without Wonsik, Taekwoon could only bite his tongue and hope for the best.

Stay focused, Taekwoon reminded himself, though Wonsik’s voice echoed louder. _I need your head in the mission. I need your best more than he does._

What if his best wasn’t enough? What if his best only helped Wonsik poison the city? Where did his duty truly lie? With the city. He would bring down any and all threats to life under the dome, no matter how or why his personal life might conflict. 

How could he let Wonsik into his life in the first place? Why did that idiot hold such a special place in his heart? 

"His subdermal trackers are still registering." Key's voice echoed around the emptied conference room. "Perhaps you can help us identify where he might be going."

"I thought we already agreed on that," Minho interrupted, casting another look toward Taekwoon, brows angled low enough to shade his eyes. "The primary atmospheric processors for the dome, at the Western Gate."

Taekwoon blinked up at the trio for a moment, watching the commander's face reflect Minho's back to him, brow creased in an expression usually saved for himself or Wonsik. The words _subdermal trackers_ hit his brain a moment later. In his years of service at the UCTF, training and otherwise, he had never heard of the use of such things. Of course, safety measures included radios with modules that transmitted their location, as well as the helmets that recorded limited video. Yet, in every manual and handbook he’d ever read, none ever mentioned subdermal trackers. When would UCTF have time to implant them? Even if he never noticed a lump in his skin, Wonsik certainly would have complained vocally about another scar.

"Agent Leo has not been cleared of suspicion," Commander Kim hissed and Minho shrugged.

So maybe Taekwoon wasn't the only CQ the commander took issue with; maybe their whole crew took time out of their day to piss off their superior. Still, he wouldn't have known, considering he and his fellow CQs didn't exactly send out a quarterly newsletter of rumors. If they did, no CQ would read it either. Taekwoon himself would rather memorize the updates on air filters, which they _had_ gotten recently. Several fans in the buildings' air processors were going to be temporarily turned off to install the additional parts.

Not that anyone else in the room cared, which suited Taekwoon fine.

He watched lips dance and bob until Key's hand whipped out to the back of Minho's uniform, fingers curling into the fabric. Acid clawed up Taekwoon's throat at the sight and the phantom pressure at his own back. 

_Wonsik._

His chest throbbed and Taekwoon wished he could owe it all to the explosion the day before. He would rather blame the spliced viruses stitching him up than some... traitor far, far away. And yet, he couldn't dismiss the foul taste crawling further up his throat. For a moment, years fell away, leaving him sitting in the foyer of his empty childhood home. _Your parents asked me to take care of you._ Aunt Hwasa's hand on his shoulder and the smile he never said goodbye to warming a room too cold to bear.

Traitor. Wonsik was a _traitor._ He tried to let the word settle in his mind, to wipe away the doubt; he needed to do his job and protect the city. But that would mean sitting on his hands under lock and key, playing the good soldier until they brought back Wonsik's corpse. They would cry accident, a stray bullet, but no one would care except him. There would be no trial, no chance for Wonsik to defend himself. Taekwoon didn't know if he could call it irony that the only class his partner struggled in was their law course. So many nights had been spent trying to explain concepts like _corpus delicti_ , which Wonsik had a particular problem comprehending. 

" _If I claim you stole my book,_ " His own voice echoed in his ears, young and full of purpose. " _But there is no proof the book left this table, then there is no_ corpus delicti. _If the crime didn't happen, you can't be convicted of it._ "

" _That doesn't make any sense,_ " Wonsik had groaned before Taekwoon had knocked his knuckles against the former's shaved head.

" _It would make sense if you studied._ "

At the front of the room, Key, Minho, and the commander finally finished their hurried whispering and Taekwoon tucked away his thoughts to listen.

"There's been a mole in our ranks for some time now," Minho explained under the commander’s watchful eye. “But with the loss of the Parasite, we must expedite our investigation significantly. Our leads point to Agent Ravi and the subdermal transmitters place him at the Western Gate.”

This time, the commander didn’t interject; they must have agreed on that information.

“What we need from you is a list of locations he would frequent,” Minho continued, gesturing to the holo of the city. “Which friends could give him a place to hide.”

Taekwoon frowned up at the trio. If they knew Wonsik’s location, then why would they need to ask him for more leads. The shotgun method of investigation had never proved helpful for the UCTF in the past, but he supposed the added risk of the Parasite outweighed a history of failure. 

“And you will stay within the UCTF at all times, escorted by another agent,” Commander Kim said, though Taekwoon already knew.

When Taekwoon nodded, Key flicked his wrist toward the holo. Swallowing, Taekwoon rose from his seat and an ache flared deep in the hollow of his chest. 

\--

Taekwoon's chest burned ever more fiercely as Agent Onew led him into the quarantine room of the infirmary. The latter gestured toward the plastic bed that sat in the middle of the space, unadorned and glaringly white. As he crossed the small space to the bed, Taekwoon nearly choked on his adam's apple as it bobbed furiously in his throat. His window was closing and _fast_ ; the need to make a decision chafed his neck. Every beat of his heart piled onto the last, a heap that tugged on his shoulders. If he let the door close behind him, Wonsik was as good as dead, a walking corpse waiting to drop. His eyes burned, though he tried to blink the pain away.

He didn't give Minho or Key much to work with, but the guilt had yet to reach him. After years of devoted service to the city, he had betrayed it. Wonsik deserved a trial, at the least, or to be interrogated for further information. After hearing his partner's words he could make a decision, but before he could do that, he had to find him. 

"You look a little pale," Onew's voice broke through the fog, suddenly quite close. "Are you feeling okay?"

A hand touched Taekwoon's shoulder and his nerves blazed to life. Wrist, elbow, neck, over-stimulate the nerves like a circuit. His vision blurred as a faceless shape dropped to the floor before him. From the vest of the downed agent, Taekwoon seized the other's ID card and slid to the closing door. His fingers pressed through the opening first and the plastic followed. No time no time, _think._ He crawled back over to Onew, who already began to stir. Good. Not dead. Taekwoon pulled off his own uniform shirt, dark with sweat, and exchanged it for Onew's vest. Tactical paint, tactical paint, where did--- his fingers brushed against the cannister at his chest. Black. _Perfect._ Without another moment of hesitation, he tore the cap free and squeezed as much as he could onto Onew's hair before smearing it about.

"--nn Minho?" the other agent groaned; Taekwoon needed to leave and _now._

He wiped the excess paint over Onew's mouth and eyes before scurrying back to the door. He pressed the back of his hand to the metal and pushed it just wide enough to look through to the rest of the infirmary. Jonghyun stood talking to the nurse, back turned but Taekwoon doubted that would last. He pocketed Onew's ID card before inching through the gap in the door. Rather than risk remaining in the open, Taekwoon crawled behind the nearest hospital bed. Distraction. He needed a distraction. Heart monitor. If he took out a heart monitor, the nurse would check on that, but would Jonghyun do so as well?

_Fuck_. What the hell was he doing? Why was he plotting against his fellow agents? Was Wonsik worth all of this? Was Wonsik worth putting his neck on the chopping block? Was Wonsik worth the entire city's safety?

Taekwoon shook his head to clear it and focused his gaze on the two standing at the desk across the room. Jonghyun had leaned forward, face inches from the nurse's.

"When this is all over, Taemin, I'll take you somewhere nice." The other agent's voice echoed in the otherwise quiet infirmary.

"Let me guess: 'nice' is that little bunker you have set up," the nurse replied, shaking her short brown bob of hair. "You _suck_."

"No way." Jonghyun reached up between himself and Taemin, seizing her chin. "I told you the Eleousa will take me back without a problem. I'll get you out of this dump."

Taekwoon's chest burned again and glanced away. If he didn't escape, he would never be able to take Wonsik anywhere, nice or not, again. No trips to their favorite haunts, no eating chicken at midnight while working on a case, no mornings full of a grossly affectionate Wonsik nuzzling into his shoulder.

Heart monitor.

"Excuse you." Taemin continued. "This dump is my home."

Swallowing, Taekwoon staggered toward the next bed on tingling knees. Stupid. _Stupid._ Spent too long listening to the chatter; Onew would likely be conscious by now. He swept his hands across the vest, searching for anything to help him. He didn't want to waste the knife or the tranquilizer darts; he had to move faster.

"You admit it's a dump," Jonghyun's voice echoed from the same place Taekwoon heard it before. No movement.

Taekwoon crawled to the next bed and the heart monitor beeped away above his head. With shaking hands, he withdrew one of the darts from the vest and pressed the needle into the cord connecting the monitor to the agent laying in the bed. He didn't know how long he would have to move.

Banging interrupted his train of thought and Taekwoon glanced up to see a conscious Onew staring through the window in the quarantine room's door, eyes and mouth a blur of black. Taekwoon moved the moment after, scurrying behind one bed, then two, toward the main doors into the infirmary.

"What the..." Jonghyun startled and his boots clacked against the tile.

To Taekwoon's surprise, a second pair followed. But his luck was short-lived as the heart monitor went off behind him. Taekwoon froze in place, heart pounding in his ears. He didn't want to hurt them, but if both of them responded to the alarm, he wouldn't have a choice. Once again, the question of _is Wonsik worth all this_ popped into his mind, shattering his focus.

"She's coding!" Taemin whispered from far too close and Taekwoon held his breath. "Crash cart is..."

Footsteps tracked away. Time slowed as Taekwoon threw the last of his patience into the wind and darted across the last few feet to the door. He slammed into the crossbar and didn't look back to see if either followed him. The East Elevator stood to the right and a set of stairs beside. He sprinted to the stairs and jerked the door open with his wrist before descending toward the lower level and the armory. If anyone was on shift, they should have already suited up or done so before the meeting. 

His chest seized with pain as he sprinted across the remaining distance to the armory door. No. _No._ This couldn't be happening now. He slid Onew's ID through the card reader with numb fingers and stumbled into the nearest locker. Lights twinkled around the edges of his vision as he stared down at the plastic card coated in the same paint that stained his hands. Breathe. Wonsik needed his head in the game. Wonsik needed _him._ Wonsik needed someone to give him a chance. If he came down to it, if Wonsik was a traitor through and through, Taekwoon would kill him with his own hands.


	7. SEVEN

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for charlotteconflicted @ tumblr

CHAPTER 7

A ripple of water washed across Wonsik's face and his eyes slid open. Like shutters, his dark lids drew back to reveal a violet sky blushing with the hint of a sunset. His body drank in every drop of color, dry after a long trek through the desert of greyed buildings and ruined towers. Despite this, he shut his eyes again and the gold that warmed the sky glowed behind his eyelids. Nothing needed his attention. He could sprawl here as long as he wished, he could sleep here among the lily pads and the koi that nipped at his fingers. His ears buzzed despite the water that should muffle any sounds of the city.

A single stalk of hollow pain sprouted in his chest and Wonsik blinked his eyes open again. He took in the masterpiece above him, eyes tracing the trailing golden streaks. They laced the gleaming silhouettes of structures built entirely of glass that glittered like the dome. He froze and turned his gaze overhead once more. The sky was unimpeded by any glimmer of the dome's hexagonal sheets that stood between mankind and slow, painful death.

He sat up in an instant, the wash of his movement casting waves over the lip of the fountain, curved bricks now glazed and glowing. His reflection shook from side to side, the koi now frenzied around him.

 

" _What the---_ " He muttered aloud as his training kicked in and he checked himself for injuries.

His fingers ran across bristles on his head, uneven and chopped close to the scalp. Some kind of grease ran down his had he pulled it away, staining his skin. What the fuck was this shit? Poison? Paint? It stuck to his fingers in a thick, inky mess. Before he could find the source of the goop, however, a cry distracted him.

He whipped around, turning toward a blaze of orange behind him.

Not a sunset.

_Fire._

Fire plumed from the smooth facade of a building that boxed him into a courtyard. Molten peels of glass slapped the brick at his feet and Wonsik scrambled away, hands clutched over his neck.

"What the fuck, what the fuck, what the _fuck_ \---"

Heat nipped at his heels as he danced across the brick. There was nowhere for him to go; his reflection stared back at him in the sheen of the glass courtyard. He spun on his heel, grinding it into powdered glass frosted beneath his feet. His blazing silhouette was interrupted by a matte set of handles to his right. Without a second thought, he sprinted for them, tore one to the side, and plunged out of the molten hail.

Wonsik stumbled into a foyer, long limbs still pulsing with adrenaline. Panting, he raised his head from where he'd ducked it in his flight. People crowded around chest-high tables and low conversation buzzed in his ears, but none turned toward him. Instead, the figures remained fixed as statues.

"Run!" He shouted, furious they stood idle when death rained just outside.

At that, faces whipped around to him, a mix of confusion and surprise sprinkled throughout the crowd. 

"Wonsik?" A light voice rang through the ensuing dyn.

From the crowd of strange faces, Taekwoon stepped forth, eyebrows knitted, and Wonsik blinked for a minute to take in the sight before him. Taekwoon was dressed to the fucking nines in a trim black suit that hugged his frame. His partner's hair curtained half of his face, long locks tucked behind one ear. Wait--- long? Wonsik blinked at Taekwoon, tracing the familiar features now framed with a chin-length bob and too-sharp jaw. Dark eyes watched him from beneath swollen, red-rimmed lids and warped skin that stretched too thin over once full cheekbones.

It was Taekwoon and yet, at the same time, distintly _not_ Taekwoon.

"Wonsik?" A feathery touch to his wrist accompanied his name and Wonsik shook his head to clear it.

Taekwoon's brows knitted, pulling at the mottled skin running along one temple.

What the fuck? Who did this to Taekwoon? Someone must have fucking pressed some kind of iron or molten---

Wonsik pivoted, turning back to the doors he scurried through not a minute ago, but in the place of two distinct panels, the glass behind him stood as a solid pane without a single crack. His head swam, unbalancing him as he continued to stare.

_How_? He just came through there. Or did he? Facing Taekwoon again, he looked past his partner at the immaculate setting. Polished hardwood floors led away from the foyer down a long hall with arched ceilings. Golden leaves glimmered where they were molded into the corners, accented by occassional burst of crystal. None glowed red with even the slightest hints of fire. Nothing like the storm from which he emerged.

In fact, nothing looked out of place, but simultaneously everything. Wonsik had never seen anything like the hall he now stood in, not even in the city's state offices. Only the dome remotely resembled his current setting, but another look out the tall windows showed him no hexagons. No dome. Then how were they all alive?

Cold, wet glass slipped into his hand and he made to jerk away instinctively, but thin fingers curled tight about his wrist.

"Drink it," Taekwoon said, flicking his gaze down to the mentioned glass of ice.

"Where the hell are we?" Wonsik dropped his voice to a whisper in his reply.

Taekwoon frowned at him, dark eyes growing wide for a moment before he reined in his reaction as the steady clack of heels interrupted them.

"Is there something wrong, Agent Leo?" A man gowned in white silks addressed Taekwoon with a heavily-accented voice. 

"No, nothing at all," Taekwoon replied, though his grip on Wonsik's wrist didn't loosen.

"Then I would advise that your friend not run around startling my guests," the stranger's tone sharpened.

"Of course," Taekwoon continued, offering a half-bow.

Wait, what?

Taekwoon tightened his grip on Wonsik's wrist, lips pressed into a thin line as the man dressed in white strode to the front of the crowd that had grown noisy with murmurs. However, when the man raised his hands, they quieted. Behind him, not a single speck of orange glowed in the glass walls. Did he imagine the fire? No, that didn't make any sense. Why was he here? Where was here, in the first place?

"He'll have thirty seconds," someone said behind him, tenor and bright, and Wonsik turned, only to be stopped by Taekwoon's fingers.

"Did you hear that?" he asked his partner, met by a furrowed brow.

"Should be enough to kill them both this time," another voice said, this one deeper and so much more familiar.

"Or that?"

Taekwoon shook his head, concern etching deeper lines into the side of his face that wasn't unnaturally smooth.

"Drink some water, Wonsik," Taekwoon urged, nudging the glass closer to him.

None of this made any sense, but Taekwoon was here and seemed calmer than him. That had to mean something. Nodding, Wonsik took a long swig of the water, the refreshing taste unlike anything he'd ever drank before.

"Is this really water?" he asked, allowing himself to relax with the weight of his shoulders.

Taekwoon didn't smile and instead continued to frown.

"Yes." A somber answer for a silly question.

His limbs grew heavier in an instant, his fingers tingling as he tilted his head to the side. Something wet and warm dripped down the side of his face. Ink swirled in his vision, speckling the sheer white tablecloth under the glass. He attempted to pull his wrist free of Taekwoon's grip but found himself struggling to stand up straight, much less fight off an experienced CQ officer. For all the calm Taekwoon exuded, however, colors clashed behind his eyes, as he tossed one of Wonsik's arms over his shoulders.

"Sorry, he's had too much to drink," Taekwoon apologized to the throng of people who dissolved into little more than a blur past the too-bright burning of the crystal.

"No, don't do this," Wonsik mumbled, his feet dragging uselessly on the hardwood foor. "They said they'll kill him. Them."

Taekwoon's jaw clenched and he said nothing in reply.

He knew. Taekwoon knew about whatever this whole thing was about.

"Where are we? Who are they?" Wonsik pleaded, hating how his voice weakened into slurring vowels.

Taekwoon said nothing as he paused at the foot of an ornate staircase that danced in and out of Wonsik's vision as he blinked. Where were they going? Where was UCTF HQ? The world swung wildly and Wonsik realized Taekwoon was setting him down on the edge of the stairs. Ink stained his partner's hands, black and smooth like the side of his face. Except, when Wonsik looked up, Taekwoon wasn't there.

Instead, a different man entirely stared back at him, face hollowed by dim overhead lighting. Instead of glittering crystal and gleaming hardwood, coarse metal surrounded him and crimson spackled the floor. A low hum like a lazy fan rang in the suppressive silence.

"Shit, he's awake." The man in front of him motioned with too-long arms to another who clambered over in a moment.

"Won't be for long," came the short reply before Wonsik's vision began to swim again.

He turned his head to the side to see a stairway, warped and crawling toward him. When he tried to raise his hands to defend himself, he realized they were bound- tight- behind him, pulling his back into a painful arch. The metal jaw opened and its jagged teeth tore through him, but when he opened his eyes once more, he sat on the grand staircase of the magnificent foyer, Taekwoon at his side.

Except Taekwoon knew something. Taekwoon knew something, but Wonsik couldn't wrap his head around what or why he wouldn't tell. Someone was going to die.


End file.
